Palestine Today 12 18 2012

Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Tuesday December 18h, 2012.

Israeli soldiers invade West Bank communities and attack a funeral, while in Gaza, soldiers uproot trees owned by local famers. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.

Israeli soldiers attacked, Tuesday, hundreds of Palestinians participating in a funeral of a child in Beit Ummar town, north of the southern West Bank city of Hebron; at least three residents have been injured.

The Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ummar reported that the army attacked the funeral procession of a 13-year old child who died of a chronic disease.

The Committee added that the army was heavily deployed at the northern entrance of Beit Ummar, and conducted provocative acts against the residents leading to clashes with local youths.

The soldiers fired several rounds of live ammunition, rubber-coated metal bullets and gas bombs at local youths; three were hit by rubber-coated metal bullets while dozens were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.

Staying in the West Bank on Monday at night, several Palestinian youths were injured, one seriously, after the army invaded Madama village, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The army also kidnapped one resident, after breaking into his home in the village, and violently searching it, leading to property damage.

In other news the Ahrar Center for Detainees Studies and Human Rights reported that Israeli soldiers kidnapped, since the beginning of this month until Tuesday December 18, 173 Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank.

The center said that most of the arrests took place in Hebron district, in the southern part of the West Bank, as the soldiers kidnapped 45 Palestinians, in addition to 32 in Nablus, 24 in Bethlehem, 22 in Ramallah, 10 in Qalqilia, 9 in Tulkarem, 7 in Tubas and 4 in Jericho.

Elsewhere several armored Israeli military vehicles invaded, on Tuesday morning, an area east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and fired dozens of rounds of live ammunition at random; no injuries were reported.

Eyewitnesses reported that at least 14 Israeli military vehicles, and a number of bulldozers, invaded the Khuza’a town, east of Khan Younis, and uprooted Palestinian farmlands that are around a hundred meters away from the security fence across the border.

And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Tuesday December 18h, news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates please visit our website at www.imemc.org. Today’s report has been brought to you by Hussam Qassis and me, Ghassan Bannoura.